Measuring Impact Task and Finish Group: final report and recommendations

Foreword

Every experience of homelessness is unique. Every person affected navigating a personal set of past experiences, current circumstances and aspirations for the future.

But what drives homelessness is predictable. Inequality in our society, the health of our housing and labour markets and the strength of our welfare safety net.

And so, determining whether we are getting closer to ending homelessness needs us to understand the interplay between those structural causes, the level of resources and tools needed to tackle them and the adequacy of the system of services that help people through it. And it needs us to understand how all this is experienced by the individuals and families who are most exposed to a failure or shortfall in any part of this bigger picture.

The Measuring Impact Task and Finish Group has embedded this understanding into a new framework, the Ending Homelessness Together Monitor, that will measure the impact of the Ending Homelessness Together Plan and demonstrate whether and where we are making progress toward ending homelessness in Scotland. Through an iterative and detailed process, the group’s contribution spanned the expertise of academics, analysts, advocates, sector leaders, policy advisors, practitioners and people with experience of homelessness.

If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. Among our key recommendations include that the Ending Homelessness Together Monitor is adopted by Scottish Government, COSLA and local partners from 2024. And that a clear route-map between the commitments in the Ending Homelessness Together Plan and the outcomes in the Ending Homelessness Together Monitor is now needed to sequence, cost, target and time the range of actions needed.

Co-Chairs of the Measuring Impact Task and Finish Group: Maggie Brunjes, chief executive of Homeless Network Scotland and Gavin Smith, chair of the Chartered Institute of Housing Scotland Board and service manager, Fife Council